How medical education survives and evolves during COVID-19: Our experience and future direction.

Ju Whi Kim,Sang Hui Moon,Hyunjin Ryu,Sun Jung Myung,Jae-Joon Yim,Hyun Bae Yoon,Cesario Bianchi

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0243958

Ju Whi Kim, Sang Hui Moon + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243958

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Abstract

Due to the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), school openings were postponed worldwide as a way to stop its spread. Most classes are moving online, and this includes medical school classes. The authors present their experience of running such online classes with offline clinical clerkship under pandemic conditions, and also present data on student satisfaction, academic performance, and preference. The medical school changed every first-year to fourth-year course to an online format except the clinical clerkship, clinical skills training, and basic laboratory classes such as anatomy lab sessions. Online courses were pre-recorded video lectures or live-streamed using video communication software. At the end of each course, students and professors were asked to report their satisfaction with the online course and comment on it. The authors also compared students' academic performance before and after the introduction of online courses. A total of 69.7% (318/456) of students and 35.2% (44/125) of professors answered the questionnaire. Students were generally satisfied with the online course and 62.2% of them preferred the online course to the offline course. The majority (84.3%) of the students wanted to maintain the online course after the end of COVID-19. In contrast, just 13.6% of professors preferred online lectures and half (52.3%) wanted to go back to the offline course. With the introduction of online classes, students' academic achievement did not change significantly in four subjects, but decreased in two subjects. The inevitable transformation of medical education caused by COVID-19 is still ongoing. As the safety of students and the training of competent physicians are the responsibilities of medical schools, further research into how future physicians will be educated is needed.

Highlights

Medical education has gradually been changing and one significant part of this has been the introduction of online learning, which is widespread in medical education but in many other fields [1]
Students were generally satisfied with the online course and 62.2% of them preferred the online course to the offline course
The majority (84.3%) of the students wanted to maintain the online course after the end of COVID-19

Summary

Introduction

Medical education has gradually been changing and one significant part of this has been the introduction of online learning, which is widespread in medical education but in many other fields [1]. Many medical schools in Korea are still sticking to face-to-face lectures and many professors prefer offline lectures rather than online ones. The risk alert level for infectious diseases has been upgraded to "serious." We no longer have the opportunity to choose between online and offline lectures. The time has come to move all face-to-face classes to online classes, and non-lecture practicums such as anatomy labs and clinical skills training should be implemented in a way that minimizes the risk of infection. Most classes are moving online, and this includes medical school classes. The authors present their experience of running such online classes with offline clinical clerkship under pandemic conditions, and present data on student satisfaction, academic performance, and preference

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